File sharing levels plummet after anti-piracy law is passed in Sweden

Levels of internet traffic have dropped after an anti-piracy law was approved in Sweden.

The new law pushes copyright holders to go through the courts to determine the identities of those suspected of piracy, via their IP addresses. While illegal file sharers benefited from anonymity previously and made the practice widespread, traffic to Netnod Internet Exchange, reported a drop of around half since last Wednesday.

The Swedish firm manages many of the country's key internet exchanges, and traffic levels dropped from a peak of around 190/200 Gbps/sec to around 80 Gbps/sec.

Lord Carter's Digital Britain interim report proposed the creation of a ‘Rights Agency' to deal with the problem of illegal copying and sharing music and films over the internet.

However he claimed that this may need to be funded by internet service providers, who may then pass the costs on to their customers.

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